We have built a powerhouse of strong local IPs: Nina Elavia Jaipuria– Nickelodeon

The competition in the Kids’ entertainment genre is now verging on the fierce, what with many new shows launched this summer. And now, Nickelodeon, Viacom18’s Kids’ Entertainment Franchise, is set to introduce India’s First Magictoon and Prince of Magic “Rudra – Boom Chik Chik Boom”. Rudra is a daily magic-comedy series that will air from 11th June 2018, Mondays to Friday, at 7.25pm. And wait, there’s more: Nick will produce upto 500 hours of original content in FY19.

To come back to India’s First Magictoon and Prince of Magic “Rudra – Boom Chik Chik Boom”. The show has been produced by Greengold Animation and written by Niraj Vikram, with eminent writer-lyricist Gulzaar having penned the lyrics. Like some of Nickelodeon’s successful predecessor IPs, Rudra also aims to win hearts of young target audiences.

Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Head – Kids Entertainment Cluster, Viacom18, says,“The kids entertainment genre clearly seems to be the most wanted genre, and kids are the most wanted TG, so there is suddenly a whole lot of clutter and competition in the space. This summer there have been almost 5 to 6 new shows in the kid’s genre; something completely unheard of before, and that’s how the competition has heated up.”

Nick being powered by strong local IPs, Jaipuriya also mentioned how their four IPs, year after year, have been completely different and enduring, and involved high risk but were most loved by kids. Each episode requires an investment of about INR 30 lakhs, and Nick have created about 350 hours of original content. The math is easy. None of their competitors are even near the 250-hour mark. Now, says Jaipuriya, Nick aims to deliver about 500 hours of local animated original content in FY’19.

“Nickelodeon has been the number 1 channel in the kid’s entertainment genre in the country over the past four years, that too with a huge margin,” says Jaipuriya. While Nickelodeon continues to reign at the Number 1 position, the team has grown (its channel) Sonic to close to just 40 GTVTs behind its stalwart competitors, the Turner channels.

Jaipuriya said Viacom18’s kids’ entertainment cluster as a network is just 2% behind Disney and has set eyes at capturing 30% of the market share in the near future. Nickelodeon has grown over 9 times since the launch of the channel and has the highest number of homegrown IPs in the Indian market.

Anu Sikka

Speaking about the difference between the Nickelodeon way of creating clutter-breaking IPs, Anu Sikka, Head – Content, Kids Entertainment Cluster, Viacom18 said,“In case of other broadcasters, where production houses pitch show concepts to them. Nickelodeon’s all local IPs starting from MotuPatlu to Rudra have been thought of, created and conceptualized by the in-house team and only been given to the production house for execution.”

Praising her team for their stellar performance in the year gone by, Jaipuriya said,“Despite all the GST headwinds and the demonetization instability, our sales team has got us a topline growth of 15%. Fifth year in the business and we are one of the most profitable business units for the Viacom18 group.”